And the World Played On
by Miz Delirium
Summary: The Dursley's are dead.... Gasp!
1. Default Chapter

When people die... you have to say something, or do something. Something that gives their name a meaning. A simple action or a present that makes them different from a number on an ever growing scale of statistics. Something that makes their grave more than a cold piece of cement stuck in the ground on a winter's day. Something. Anything. Make them be remembered, fondly, even if they were heartless bastards who you never liked. They've died, but you're alive, and so you've got to live.  
  
You've got to cry, even if you don't want to. Or don't think they deserved your tears, or anyone's tears.  
  
It's how we do it, really. I've seen enough people die to know that by now.. You go to the funeral, speak the poetry, and then you move on. But first speak for them, I hope you're saying their words.  
  
"Harry?" Thoughts, they're broken... Dumbledore looks softly at me from behind his large desk, Phawks peers at me like I'm some small child that's lost its way.  
  
"I'm sorry, Harry." He tells me, and he is. I can see it. There's silence then, I raise my hand to tell him, I know he's sorry. You're sorry, I'm sorry... everybody's sorry.  
  
My first thought after hearing the news was a numb one of, 'I don't think I liked them very much.' For a moment, any emotion they had ever stirred in me had vanished, replaced only with an afterglow. They didn't need emotions from me anymore, because they were gone.  
  
My only family as I was growing up... just... gone.  
  
I rest my head on my hand, and don't feel myself shaking. For once Dumbledore's words just drift thru my head, like waves of snow across pavement. Nothing sticks- nothing latches on. Everything is just above comprehension. I could feel us sitting in the room for a good long time, but the only thing I'm sure he said was, "Harry, they're dead."  
  
And seconds passed, minutes, maybe. I could hear things again, I was noticing shadows and light, I could tell all kinds of lumps had gathered in my throat and were that I was now fighting back an army of emotion, which had all come hurdling down at once.  
  
"The Weasley's have generously offered their home to you..." Says Dumbledore, quietly. I forgot about life, more importantly, death and those who'd just faced it, and remembered what Dumbledore was about. I admired his patience, and his wisdom, and his spirit all over again. I'm glad he was the one to tell me.  
  
"And of course, you will always be welcome at Hogwarts." Of course the Weasleys generously offered their house to me. That was what they did. Of course I would be welcome at Hogwarts, Although that wasn't what they did.  
  
And my lips are moving, and sound is coming out.  
  
"Dumbledore.." I say, in a low voice. Temporarily forgetting any sort of title to prefix that.  
  
"Yes, Harry?" he looks at me in the way you think he's looking right thru you.  
  
"How did... Voldemort... kill them?"  
  
"You deserve to know Harry, although it is my belief I should not tell you today. Unless, of course, you truly wish it so." And I stare at him. Just stare, for a moment, for a year, I don't know, all the clocks in my head have sprung their sprockets and are lying in a twisted heap at my feet. Next to the Quidditch robe, I think.  
  
"I think... I think I want to be told." Dumbledore gives me a sad and trying look. He sighs, and tells me exactly how they died. And I don't need to fight emotion as I hear him. I'm a small child lost in a bedtime story. I'm leaning back and staring at the story teller, envisioning every small detail. I can picture aunt petunia's long neck twisted on the floor that she used to use to spy on the neighbors.  
  
Then.  
  
Suddenly and painfully,  
  
I feel like a runner on his last legs of a marathon, out of breath weak, and tortured. Just like my relatives must have felt before they died. And I begin to cry. Deep, lurching sobs wash over me like on all the ocean beaches that I have never seen. I cry for grotesque, foul smelling Dudley who used to beat me up, and I cry for uncle Vernon who was equally grotesque and foul smelling, and for Petunia. I cry because although they should have lived differently, and because they should have died differently too.  
  
It takes a long time to stop...  
  
But all things come to an end, so they say. And so did this. I wiped my eyes, and there was silence once again. I bit my tongue until my eyes watered from pain instead of sadness. Dumbledore handed me a purple colored tissue, I placed my hand outstretched, and watch it glide from his palm to mine. Remnants of tears still stained my face and neck... but I was better. I was collected. I understood.  
  
"Dumbledore... what do I do? .. now. What do I do now..." I sniff, and cry a bit more... my eyes are red and my heart is ready to fall out of my body and sit on the floor with the Quidditch robe, and with all other broken things.  
  
"Harry... you do what you want... you do as you've always done." So says Dumbledore, the spark of wisdom at the end of all the dark days.  
  
"Harry... you attend the funeral. You bid the dead farewell. You grieve.. then you continue with your life."  
  
And I leave that place, Fawkes is still peering at me like a child who wandered too far from the swing set and lost its parents. Which is funny. Ha. Ha. It's how I feel. 


	2. Another Cliche Happened That Day

And the World Played Along: The Funeral  
  
"Another Cliché Happened Today"  
  
The Dursley's are dead.  
  
Harry's at a cool rainy funeral!!  
  
  
  
  
  
Ron and Hermione come with me to the funeral. They're my mirrors. If I start to cry, then they cry. For the same reasons. Not because they will miss my family a terrible amount. But because they are gone, completely and totally. And yes, because of how they went.  
  
"I suppose in some ways Voldemort's done me a favor." I said bitterly, late one night, and laughing. Ron had smiled, looked uncomfortable, then said,  
  
"I was waiting for you to say something like that. I wanted to, but, you know, I wanted you to do it first." And he smiled, you know, bitter smiled. And we'd gone on playing chess and the other kids didn't pay us any mind at all.  
  
Anyway, the funeral was, for lack of better words, fine. It was cliché, too. I'd never been to a muggle funeral. Although I'd imagine I probably have been to a funeral. That is, my parents funeral. If they had one. If I was invited. If Vernon and Petunia had wanted to say goodbye at all… this muggle funeral was like the movie muggle funerals I've seen on television. Nice and rainy, people standing around the coffin, wearing black, saying little. Except here there were three coffins, and one of them, I'd imagine, was very very heavy. And as the minister spoke, I found myself wondering if Dudley had fit into a normal sized coffin. And the minister spoke… black umbrella in the air.. we sang a hymn, (Ron seemed very confused by this. But tried to sing along too…) I didn't make any attempt to contribute to the already terrible chorus… besides, there was a walnut sized lump residing at the back of my throat.  
  
The people at the funeral were ones I didn't like. Some of them I knew, some of them I didn't. I didn't like them by the looks of them, and by the fact they were associated with the Dursley's and perfectly willing to come to the funeral and cry their eyes out. Then. I was here too, wasn't I.  
  
And the minister spoke on, about all three of them. I'd imagine a normal funeral would have been three times as short. The rain fell on all of us. Instead of looking at the coffins, or paying attention to the minister, I studied the group of people, about thirty of us, who had gathered on this rainy day to say their goodbyes.  
  
There were two boys, Piers Polkiss and Erin Saine. With, presumably, their parents. I remembered them both from school. They were both looking down and Piers, who was far taller than when I'd last seen 'em, was, possibly praying. I felt some sympathy for him immediately. It would hurt to see a old friend like that just go…. It Idoes/I hurt. I glanced at Ron who was looking somewhat frightened. I saw Hermione, who looked slightly constipated with her face all wrinkled up and sad like.  
  
"ashes to ashes, dust to dust…" said the minister. I sighed, and tried to preoccupy my mind with thoughts like, 'why does he say that when they weren't cremated? I wonder if he's catholic. Do all cathloics say things like that? Were the dursleys even religious?' my mind goes from one thing to another and I try not to watch anything but the sky as the coffins go down all at once.  
  
I'm trying to act, as they say, like I've never seen the sky before. And it does look incredible today—one of those moments when it seems to much better than you and, and,  
  
"Harry?" the crowd is beginning to disperse. The goodbyes have been said to the family. They're gone. Six feet under…  
  
".. yeah?" my lips move. And I now stare the grave of one Dudley dursley… all there are, are the dates. The name. No quote, no nothing. I stare at the cold cement block, and wonder what they could have possibly put on as a quote. Mrs. Weasley is the one who has asked my name, I realize sometime after she's done it, and she puts a hand on my shoulder, and squeezes.  
  
"There is a reception." I say, numbly. "A wake.. Is that what you call it…" She gives me a big hug that would squeeze your insides.  
  
"Or… or maybe we should just… go home…" I say, halfway choking. From the hug, and back tears.  
  
We have a cab arranged, and we go with the other poor muggles, mourning the deaths of their good friends the dursley's… I don't know why we do it at all. Because all of us our awkward. I think everyone else just is going because they think I want to go… and on some levels, I do. I look out the window as we leave the cemetery.  
  
It's a nice cemetery, I think. As cemeteries are… I think… there is a lake near where the Dursley's are. I rub my eyes, suddenly very tired, and think: I hope the dursleys like this as much as pivet drive… and I'm not trying to be mean.  
  
And we get to the final, large gates of this huge cemetery. They're black and skeletal, pointy at the top. I whipe the last of my tears away.  
  
And then, it hits me. What would have I put on Dudley's cold slab of cement? As his quote? As the long lasting words I would remember him buy?  
  
"Harry sucks."  
  
Or something to that effect. 


End file.
